Woman who joined ISIS as a teen loses challenge against the removal of her UK citizenship

[Jose Garcia]

Source: CNN

A woman who left the United Kingdom to join ISIS at the age of 15 has lost her Court of Appeal challenge over the decision to remove her British citizenship.

Shamima Begum flew to Syria in 2015 with two school friends to join the terror group. While there, she married an ISIS fighter and spent several years living in Raqqa.

Begum then reappeared in al-Hawl, a Syrian refugee camp, in 2019. She made international headlines as an “ISIS bride” after pleading with the UK government to be allowed to return to her home country for the birth of her son.

Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid removed her British citizenship in February that year, and Begum’s newborn son died in a Syrian refugee camp the following month. She told UK media she had two other children prior to that baby, who also died in Syria during infancy.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/europe/shamima-begum-appeal-loses-intl/index.html

[Fullduplexxx]

1. Oh hey that's too bad but good luck with your life in isis

[Ilsa]

2. 15 year olds do a lot of stupid things,

some of which have life-long consequences. It's a shame her parents couldn't stop her, maybe "de-program" her.

[Warpy]

7. She lost the "jusband" ISIS assigned her to

and all of their three children.

It's hard not o have some sympathy for this monumentally screwed up and screwed over young woman.

She's paid a steep price for being a headstrong, ignorant teenager with stars in her eyes about what was one of the most vicious cults the world has ever seen.

I have to think maybe the UK knows something we don't about her. Repatriating her to Bangladesh, a country she doesn't remember and where she won't be able to speak the language seems a cruel alternative.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. She's not going to Bangladesh. They've said that now she's over 21, her chance to get Bangladeshi citizenship

through her parents has expired (and I think they made sure of that - they regard her as Not Their Problem). She is stuck in the refugee camp (not a good place to be, as the deaths of her children have shown; and Assad's government may yet advance into that territory, and while others in the camp may then be able to flee, her chances are low).

The UK government does indeed know something we don't - part of their case is that they have evidence indicating she'd be a danger in an unspecified way if allowed into the UK. The courts have apparently seen the evidence, but it's not public (it might be, for instance, someone in the camp saying "she's putting on the act of contrition - she's still really an extremist Islamist at heart" ).

It's hard to know what her true beliefs have been - people can be foolish at 15, yes, but it's said she became pretty hard-line in the ISIS society. Brainwashing, or her chosen path?

[LeftInTX]

3. Sounds like she may be able to appeal again.

She is apparently being left stateless.

[Kennah]

5. Texas will take her if she converts to Y'all Qaeda

[Oopsie Daisy]

4. Sometimes individuals actually do deserve the consequences of their actions and decisions.

[Random Boomer]

9. Minors can make really bad decisions

It's a harsh outcome for teenage stupidity.

[Oopsie Daisy]

10. Yes it is. Pity, isn't it?

[Jake Stern]

12. Stupidity is getting busted behind the 7-11 drinking while underage,

not running off to join an indescribably vicious multi-national terror movement.

[maxsolomon]

6. The mitigating factor for me is her age. She was a minor when she made a very bad decision.

I'd be inclined to give her a chance to re-establish citizenship. But I'm a bleeding-heart liberal.

3 dead children before she was 19, oof.

[Happy Hoosier]

8. Yeah, I havta admit....

.... she did a monumentaly stupid thing. But kids sometimes do. For me, it would matter a lot what her current attitude is. I'd want complete contrition and repudiation of radical Islam.